We Say ... Impact fees have long been needed

Are you kidding? YES, I FULLY SUPPORT CHARGING IMPACT FEES FOR NEW PEOPLE MOVING INTO THE AREA CAUSING A LACK OF CLASSROOM SPACE! DOES THE WORD "ILLEGALS" RING A BELL? THEY HAVE BEEN MOVING INTO THE AREA FOR YEARS AND OVERFLOWING OUR CLASSROOMS! HOW MANY WILL BE CHARGED AN IMPACT FEE? IT'S AMAZING TO ME HOW THIS PAPER CONTINUES TO LOOK PAST THE OBIVIOUS TO THIS SO CALLED "NO-BRAINER" AS THOUGH IT'S SOME SORT OF GREAT IDEA. THE ONLY PEOPLE CAUSING A LACK OF CLASSROOM SPACE ARE ILLEGALS!

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No bias here, but it always seems only those who have no factual response always pull out the race or biased card to distract everyone from the point being made. Go to a school, observe classes for several weeks and see for yourself. We have a serious problem in this country with illegals and the bleeding hearts are willing to give away everything Americans have fought and died for just to be politically correct! Keep your head buried in the sand and someday illegals will bury the rest of you.

I doubt impact fees will impact illegals. I was just making the point that BT missed the mark about "who" is filling classrooms. Your point about it being too late to act on impact fees is well taken. The Government hasen't acted on illegals so we have a mess that no one wants to admit to and schools can't correct. However, "we" can by demanding our Senators & Reps take action by writing & calling every week. Suggest anyone interested join "numbersusa." Do a search on the internet, they take the fight to Washington everyday.

The country is broken at the highest levels. Nobody can fix the mess called Congress.

At a local level, though, I believe impact fees are a great idea - or would have been five years ago. Now that it's too late, it does our legislature no harm to throw us the bone of appearing to do something about our problems.

It's hard to play a football game when one side has all the players and the other merely has a few half-hearted cheerleaders. We the people are destined to lose at every level.

1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County has 10.2 million people)are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal , whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking.
10. In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.
(There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County . )

( Al l 10 of the above are from the Los Angeles Times)

Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare. Over 70% of the United States ' annual population growth (and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration. 29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.

I mean, great to see all that about LA, thanks for the horrifying info about a city 2,000 miles from here, but that has ... um, trying to think of a polite word here ... um ... JACK FREAKING NOTHING to do with discussing school impact fees in Beaufort County.

Indeed, gimmy a break.

Impact fees are financial sops to throw to the idiot voters to appease them now that the development damage is done.

If government officials didn't hear us screaming for impact fees in the glory days of Bluffton's growth (and they clearly didn't), why on earth would they listen now? The reality is it's a worthless sop tossed your way because it does their developer pals no harm - not anymore. Enjoy it if you wish.

"equal treatment under the law". How would the Pulte Corporation, building houses in an adult only community, go about charging an impact fee for school construction to people who bring no children to the community?

VM, they will collect the fee and designate it by some other name. Then provide it to the schools in some other form. In any case the schools need more then money, they need leadership from the federal government (unlikely) and they need parents to raise hell with state elected officals.

What does impact fees have to do with illegals again?? FYI, movingforward...I'm in the classroom very, very frequently...I see who is in there and so on. I see a bunch of kids who, more often than not, are very willing to learn any and everything.

The difference between "involvement" and "commitment" is like an egg and ham breakfast. The chicken was involved, the pig was totally committed. Enjoy your breakfast!!

Nothing Ruth. My original point was BT missed the mark by making it sound like all the people (assumes legal americans) moving here are filling up the classrooms so the county should charge a fee to "someone" to pay for it. However, illegals make up a large part of those classrooms which BT failed to mention. My other point was who is going to charge illegals a fee?

Are you saying a better solution to the overpopulation of the illegals here is to charge them for classroom space? If so, would you agree that placing stricter limitations on the border crossings in the first place would elimate some of the crowding?

I think it would be better to not make it so "confortable" for them here. Employers caught hiring illegals should be heavily fined.

I have no problem with people coming here from other countries legally. I do have a problem when their very first act in getting here is a crime.

which could be helped by impact fees - like maybe Hardeeville - when the economy improves. Sun City residents (and others) moving to the area require services and many of the people who will come into the area to provide those services will use the schools, even if the retired folks don't use the schools directly.

Gin, there was a bit of a pun embedded in my statement "who is going to charge illegals a fee?" No one of course. However, I do think it only fair that if we charge a fee for filling classrooms then it should be charged to everyone filling classrooms, not just construction companies.

I have screamed at my Senators for years to close the Southern border but you see where that has got me. The E-Verify system is suppose to be used by employers to verify a workers right to work in this country. Sadly it is not fully enforced nor is ICE as active as they should be in this area. I have advised ICE of the many locations illegals congregate but they take no action. And then when private citizens take actions into their own hands the police get all upset!

I understand your point completely. However, rather than "charging" illegals, I'd say, deport them. That way, it wouldn't be necessary to charge anyone; especially legal, hard-working, tax-paying, citizens who move here for whatever reasons.

I, too, have written and emailed Senators, in both parties, regarding the influx of illegals and their detrimental burden on our economy. My request was that they support more funding for border control. It got me the same place as you - absolutely nowhere.

Is E-Verify the updated version of the old I-9's? If so, it is a useless function. I have yet to see, or even hear of, ICE seriously "rounding up" any illegals in our area. We can point them out very easily, because from what I see, none of them are hiding.

When you say "private citizens take actions into their own hands the police get all upset", how right you are. However, I wonder if we to remain at the mercy of our legislators. If so, the French appear to have the solution. In America, we are afraid of our government. In France, the government is afraid of the people. That is the way it should be: represent the interest of the people or leave office.

It's time to revisit the fourteenth amendment. I don't think the original intent was to be applied to illegal aliens. This is most assuredly MHO, but i think it would go a long way toward removing the incentive to come here. Birthright citizenship should apply only to legal immigrants whose loyalty is towards the U.S.

Ever been to Sun City and seen who is on the construction crews - men, women, and even children sometimes who appear to be Hispanic? Pulte's subcontractors are the reason the illegals are here and no enforcment in sight. Pulte and the other developers should be charged an impact fee to mitigate school overcrowding.

I have a couple of friends in Sun City. Not only were the illegals building the houses, they were living in them in droves until the homeowners moved in. It was an "open secret" because they knew they could get away with it.

The mass majority of building crews Pulte hires "appear" to be Hispanic because they are. Also, those that warranty the building structure, the windows and certainly the majority of landscapers.

Somehow, I just don't believe that legal American citizens cannot build, repair and landscape.